Climate risk assessment for marine and coastal sectors

Problem addressed

Climate change is altering marine ecosystems, coastal conditions and resource availability, directly affecting the economic viability of key activities. Businesses, fishing fleets and policymakers need to understand and anticipate these risks to reduce their exposure to environmental and operational threats.

What we do and how we do it

At AZTI, we combine expertise across disciplines to provide integrated assessments of climate risks for individual sectors:

• We develop regional marine projections by downscaling the global climate models used by the IPCC.
• We assess the vulnerability of ecosystems, fishing fleets, coastal communities and value chains.
• We identify operational threats, including erosion, salinisation, declining productivity and habitat changes.
• We incorporate indicators into tools that support sectoral management and planning.
• We work with public authorities, businesses and local stakeholders to ensure that findings can be applied in practice.

Key benefits

• Anticipating future climate risks for key sectors.
• Realistic assessments tailored to local socioeconomic contexts.
• A comprehensive approach that combines ecological, social and economic factors.
• Effective transfer of scientific knowledge into operational and strategic management.